It's For the Best
by ragabeubeu
Summary: - "I mean it, Damon," she says, still light and still cheerful, but serious somehow, too. "Why did you push me back to him?" Mystic Falls is a normal town without magic and that sets in the normal world, in which Damon returns after two years of absence. It should have been enough for him to forget a summer fling with his brother's girl, yet as he returns his demons follow him home


**Author's note**: Hi, so this is my first fan fiction on vampire diaries, so I'm merely beginning to go around the characters, still I hope that it won't take me too long to identify them and that you'll enjoy this first chapter. Also, I'm originally French, so if you spot any mistakes in my writing be sure to point it out. Well, I'll only add that reviews are always welcome, and again I hope you'll enjoy reading this.

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_"The world was in a dream before the war, but now it's woken up and said goodbye to it." _Downton Abbey

CHAPTER 1

Mystic Falls.

It's a strange name for a town; it's a name that most first-timers laugh at without restrain. To him though, it doesn't sound absurd, and it doesn't sound so laughable anymore. It sounds like hot golden summer nights, fresh and wet spring flowers, childhood memories and haunted love. Not laughable at all. Mostly, it sounds like home.

Years have gone by now since Damon Salvatore was last seen in Mystic Falls. Two years, exactly. Two years since he's walked those streets, bypassed the lovely florist shop around the corner, and the strangely-still-familiar bakery where he used to buy Elena cherry tarts. Two years exactly since he's last seen his brother, or anyone at all who still lives in Mystic Falls.

It's been two years since he's seen her, too.

In other words, two years since he left without a look behind his shoulder and joined the military; he couldn't look behind his shoulder. No sir. Because if he didn't leave the lovely never-changing town right then, part of him feared that he never would.

It's not that Damon disliked Mystic Falls, but simply for him to settle down there would have been more than a bad idea. It would have been a joke. A cute surprise-less town like Mystic Falls wasn't a town for men like him. It wasn't a town for precocious criminals who the local sheriff never missed an occasion to frown upon, it wasn't a town for the kind of people who already got arrested an incalculable amount of times before even turning eighteen.

It was the kind of town for girls like Elena Gilbert.

But again, girls like Elena Gilbert weren't the right kind of girls for men like Damon Salvatore.

The thought still sounded sour, so long after he'd made his decision. It didn't sound good, it certainly didn't sound fair, but sometimes, Damon thought despite himself that it sounded right. It sounded true.

But now, as he stood facing that red wooden door, inevitably tense but not nervous, never nervous, Damon Salvatore just felt that it sounded like fate.

Then the door opened, and a burst of joy lightened his little brother's face into a cheerful smile as he saw him. "Damon." Was the only word he spoke before he pulled him into a brotherly embrace, which lasted merely long enough for him to lock a hand behind his back before he let go and pulled away.

Damon smiled too, although there was something that oddly felt more real about his smile; something that felt sadder, too. Whilst his brother peacefully finished his high school years, Damon had seen what reality looked like beyond the city's walls. He'd gone past the rainbow and had seen what the illusionary wisp of smoke covered in bright colors. He'd seen cruelty and death, but this he expected, though what he'd seen more than he ever thought he would was harshness. Where he'd been, everything seemed to go back to harshness. Harshness was a loathed acquaintance, sometimes even a friend, a shadow of some sort, and its touch was icy cold.

Maybe this was the reason why Stefan's merely joyful smile brought a taste of bitterness to his own. Only deep down, Damon knew that this wasn't the reason. It wasn't the reason at all.

"How've you been, brother?" Damon forced lightness into his voice and sincerity into his smile, as Stefan drew him inside the house. But Stefan didn't have time to answer, because as soon as he stepped inside, the music and loud cheering became perceivable to Damon's ears, and a concern close to panic crept inside of his voice. "You threw a _party_?"

"Come on," Stefan urged, and the smile was still frozen on his lips as though happiness was luxury that some never even thought of losing. "You can't put the blame on me, everyone was excited at the thought of you coming back."

Though between what Damon discovered inside of their living room and how he knew most people felt about him in this town, it occurred to him that what his return more accurately meant was an excuse to party. _Right_, he thought bitterly; because in Mystic Falls, absolutely everything could be an excuse for a party.

"Don't tell me that there isn't anybody here beside me that you've missed." Stefan joked, and as his brother detailed him, he blindly thought that the boy hadn't changed at all in two years. Stefan Salvatore had gone from eighteen to twenty years old, and yet those clear eyes still reflected innocence and ignorance, which in Damon's opinion were very much alike.

But again, he thought with an inward grunt, the music playing was so damned loud that he could barely hear himself think. He quickly examined what excuse could get him to quietness again as fast as possible, and ultimately lowered his eyes to his clothing and shrugged with an apologetic smile. "No, you're right. I did miss it here," he didn't have time to ponder whether or not the last part of his sentence sounded like a lie. "I'm just going to go change and meet you downstairs, okay?"

"Sure."

Damon wasted no time in climbing the stairs that led to his bedroom, sighed as soon as he was out of sight and thanked the lord that his arrival had gone rather unnoticed. As he slowly gained the second floor and left the party and ambient rock 'n' roll music behind, Damon let the silence pervade him and welcomed it in.

It was crazy how, as he first joined the military, he could barely stand that smothering quietness at night, and now he wasn't sure he could go on without it for more than a few minutes.

Damon rediscovered his room with weary amusement. The room wasn't too dusty, but it was more as though it'd been quickly swept and scrubbed rather than regularly cleaned over the past two years. Truth is, although his brother had probably only done this because it was the polite thing to do, Damon would have gladly told him not to bother. What was the point in dusting the furniture and walls as though time hadn't passed? It had. And to come home certainly didn't mean that Damon was walking back into his old life, where nothing had changed in the wait of his return.

No sir.

That old life was gone forever.

Damon thought back on his brother's words with amusement, as he pondered on the people he'd left here in Mystic Falls. He wondered who'd be the most glad to see him, Tyler Lockwood who still owed him a hundred bucks, or the sheriff who he'd never managed to listen to.

Then his thoughts took that natural course, and he thought of her. He didn't mind; of course, to be here again was going to bring back memories, there was nothing to do to stop it, but merely look back on the memories with resigned detachment. Yes. Damon reckoned that, from all the people here that he'd left behind, Elena Gilbert probably wouldn't be too unhappy to see him again.

They'd never been together. They'd never been a couple. And yet, friends is not what they used to be either. As he pondered on it, Damon came to the conclusion that he didn't have a word for what they used to be, nor did it matter, not anymore; because, by definition, they _used to be_. It didn't matter now because Damon had left when it did matter.

Because it used to matter, he found it fair to say that it did.

In fact, he believed that though there had never been so much as a kiss or a romantic gesture between them, Elena Gilbert wouldn't have been difficult to win over or to be asked out on a date. There was a time when she would have done close to anything for him. Actually, though he knew his brother had been her first official boyfriend and probably would be the last, Damon liked to consider that he had been her childhood sweetheart.

Because she looked at him with awe in her eyes and worshipped everything he gave her, as worthless as it was. Because she was only sixteen then, probably, and because she didn't look at him and see the official white trash that almost wore a public warning, she looked at him and saw the older frightening yet enticing boy who didn't care about the rules, little about the laws, and yet who found the time to pay attention to her. That's probably all she thought he did. The boy who bought her sweets from the bakery and picked up flowers along the muddy path down her house when he went to see her.

Damon guessed that, deep down, she had to know he'd loved her. He'd loved that well-known sweetest girl around town, whose parents _owned_ the town; Elena Gilbert was fittest girl he could imagine to illustrate the elusive 'girl next door'. She was plain, but beautiful; plain in the way that it would be difficult to point out what was special about her, physically speaking. Brown hair, brown eyes, an average height and slightly tanned skin, and yet there was something about her or maybe the whole lot that just felt breathtaking to look at.

She was a beautiful sweet, sweet girl, who probably had no idea what a knockout she'd turned out to be, and saw in him a tender hearted bad boy. And they might have only been a flirt, she might have never even known, Damon thought it fair to believe that they could have been.

And when the idea had occurred to him, he'd surrendered his life to a nation he didn't care about and ran as fast as he could.

Damon took his time changing his shirt as the last ray of sunshine disappeared outside the window.

His head was still in the past.

He hadn't run out of cowardice. Quite on the contrary, he liked to think of what he'd done as bravery. He'd let her go. Not because she didn't want him, not even because he knew that his brother had been fond of her since freshmen year or because her parents would have exiled her if she'd gone out with him.

He'd let her go because, one night as he walked her home, it occurred to him how easy it would be for her to fall in love with him. He'd let her go because it occurred to him that, if he'd kissed her right then and there on her doorstep, she probably wouldn't have stopped him.

He'd let her go because she was a good girl, and he simply wasn't a good guy.

It was stupid, but as simple as that.

He'd let her go because though he could have acted on what he wanted, though he could have been selfish, something just felt horribly sad about being selfish to Elena Gilbert.

He'd let her go because he could have been what she needed. Maybe. What she wanted? Without a doubt. But certainly not what she deserved.

And he was right, he thought now, as he finished dressing; for final proof, he inwardly determined that Elena Gilbert was probably still the same sweet girl she used to be. She probably still got tearful eyes whilst watching _Titanic_ or _Romeo and Juliet_, she probably still liked to dance and eat pistachio ice cream whilst listening to Elvis.

He just wasn't a boy anymore.

He drew in a sharp breath as if to summon strength before he opened the door of his bedroom, and began striding downstairs, back to the party. He really wished that Stefan hadn't done all of this, he really wished that this could have been a small and more discreet – more quiet – family reunion. Even if that would have meant that he'd have had no chance to see Elena tonight.

But then again, he forced in the thought that it didn't matter. Letting go was letting go, yes sir; what else was he to think otherwise? What else was he to say? Spot her into crowd and watch as she spotted him, and say: honey, I'm back?

_Back_. The word sounded bitter somehow, in his mind.

Yet as he climbed down the stairs and stopped midway, and watched in a rediscover all of the people that he'd left behind, he guessed it would have been ridiculous to deny that it's not her he was searching for. He sought her out in the dancing crowd –she used to love to dance– and as his gaze tirelessly searched and brought short-fading false hopes that arose and faded in his ribcage, without finding her, he thought that it was okay. It was better than okay. It was for the best. She wasn't his sweet girl anymore, anyways; he wasn't her bad boy.

They'd been a summer flirt, and it would be a miracle if she were to remember it anyway.

And still as he looked back ahead of him and saw her standing there, closer then close, a lot closer than she was in his dreams, with her long dark hair wavering across her shoulders and down to her waist, and those rosewood eyes in which he could almost still distinguish a long gone awe, something inside of him seemed to both awaken and die.

And as he saw her, for the first time since he'd gone back to Mystical Falls, for the first time since the military training and unbending harshness, he truly felt like he'd come home.


End file.
